Friday, December 13, 2013

The Immortals: Chapter One, Part Three

Kendra
gulped. The silence persisted as Nef continued to watch her, the black woman’s
hands pressed – palm down – on the table. The sentence hanging between them –
the bit about killing a lot of people – seemed to turn the air to ice in Kendra’s
lungs, despite the fact that the rising sun was already starting to bring in
the Californian warmth that she was so used too.

“I don’t
want to kill anyone,” Kendra said. She was immediately embarrassed by how her
voice sounded: Weak, childish, whiny. She should have been able to say such an
obviously moral thing with strength and conviction: ‘No, I will not kill
anyone, for killing is wrong!’

She
should have. But she didn’t.

Nef
sighed, her breath misting in the air. “It is kill or be killed.”

“And
that makes it BETTER!?” Kendra winced at the way her own voice squeaked and
popped, moving from tense to out and out hysterical.

“No.”
Nef shook her head. “No it does not. But it is the truth, and it is one that
you will have to become accustomed too.”

“I don’t…I
won't…I…” Kendra held her hands up. “I have to get to school. I have a life! I
have friends!”

Nef
stood. “If you leave my presence, Crichton will come back and kill you. And if
not him, then the others might attack. Some of them are less scrupulous than
Mr. Crichton.”

“He
came after an unarmed teenager with a sword!” Kendra put her hands over her
mouth to stop herself from screaming. The panic that she kept trying to nail
down threatened to spiral up and out of control every time she opened her
mouth.

“He
didn’t capture your family and hold them for ransom,” Nef said.

Kendra
stopped before she said what she was thinking – you people are monsters! – but it was a close one. She closed her
eyes, turned around, and then opened her eyes. She looked at the parking lot of
the foot court – empty, save for a few employee cars, or people parking to get
the early bird deal at the local Couches and Quills – and she tried to imagine
life with people like Crichton ready to pop out and stab her at any moment. She
tried to imagine what it would be like: Paranoia, hiding, being armed all the
time…she’d have to have a gun, for one thing. Or did guns not work on
Immortals?

“It’d…”
She paused, then turned back to face Nef. “It’d be easier if you were less
honest, you know?”

Nef
smiled.

“If you
didn’t let on about the whole killing people, life of violence thing, then I’d
have been sold on the magic and the immortality.” Kendra smiled. “I…I might
still freak out at any second, but for now, I am going to try and treat this as
a comic book.”

Nef
looked a little non-plussed at that. Shaking her head, she stood and then
gestured towards the exit of the food court.

“Come
on. I have some people you need to meet.”

“Wait,
what about school? I can’t just skip school.”

Nef
smiled as Kendra hurried up to her side, the two women walking out of the food
court and onto the sidewalk that looped around the side of the court. She
inclined her head in the direction of the school.

“By the
time tomorrow morning comes by, this day will have not happened. You
did not plan to do anything majorly eventful this day, correct? Nothing that
will alter the history of the country or the world if it does not happen, hmm?”

“Um,
not to my knowledge.” Kendra pursed her lips, blowing air through them like a
whickering horse as she thought. It had been a habit she had picked up from…somewhere.
She wasn’t entirely sure, and thinking about that would just send her off on
another irrelevant thought train. “Why?”

Nef
sighed and then stopped as they came to another traffic light. She gestured.

“What
would happen if you went left, as opposed to right?”

Kendra
leaned forward, putting her hand on the chilly traffic light pole to brace
herself as she looked down the street.

“I’d
end up at the library,” she said, nodding after a moment.

“And if
you went right?”

Kendra
looked right.

“I’d
get on the highway, eventually. Or I’d go over the overpass and get to the
mall.” She grinned. “I could get new shoes.”

Nef
nodded. The lights changed and – rather than going left or right, they went
straight. “Now, you would say that life is full of such choices. Go left or
right. Wear this or that. Say this or that. Correct?”

Kendra
nodded.

Nef
stepped forward – so that she was a pace or two ahead of Kendra, an easy task
with her long legs – and then turned on her heel. She started to walk
backwards, without a care in the world.

“What
if you could re-make a decision? What if, after going left, you could decide to
then go right instead?”

Kendra
thought about it for a moment.

“Life
would be like a video game, I guess.” Kendra grinned. “You can redo decisions
that you don’t like. What did Bryant call it…” She rubbed her chin.

“Bryant?”

“Ex-boyfriend.”

Nef
nodded, solemnly. As she did so, Kendra snapped her fingers.

“Save
scumming!” She beamed. “The only way to beat X-Com.”

Nef
smiled. “Exactly. You reload the game whenever one of your favorite soldiers
dies unfairly. You reload and reload until the enemy either misses him or until he survives being shot. That is the essence of immortality.”

Kendra
stopped, as if she had run straight into one of the traffic signs that dotted
the sidewalk – the ones indicating where cars could park, and where buses
would stop to pick people up. She held her hand up, palm flat to Nef.

“Did…did
you just reference X-Com?”

Nef
smiled. “I was born in 1988, Kendra.”

“But…you…said
you were an Ancient Egyptian!” Kendra said as Nef turned around – she had
apparently reached her destination, as she turned into a side street that
looked like it led straight to a gate for a gated community. Kendra hurried
after the black woman – who started to tap buttons on a small intercom box that
hung near the front of the gate.

Nef
grinned as the gate started to open. “I am. I was born in the year 1032 BC. But
I was also born in 1988 AD. And last year, I was born in 1987. And in the
year before that, I was born in 1986.”

The
gate had fully opened, revealing the normal façade of a gated community – a small
garage, with an awning to protect the cars from sun and rain, a collection of apartments
connected to one another by balconies and stairwells. Sitting before one of the
apartments was a grindstone, where a man with a welding mask was grinding a
sword against the stone – producing a flare of sparks.

“Come,”
Nef said, stepping into the gates. “You should meet your other allies and
teachers.”

And
with more questions than answers, Kendra entered the Immortal’s refuge.